⚙️ IronClaw vs 📬 Hermes
IronClaw (security-hardened openclaw variant for teams) versus Hermes (memory-first agent with polished mcp support). Same task, different tradeoffs. Here's how to pick.
At a glance
| ⚙️ IronClaw | 📬 Hermes | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free (self-hosted); Enterprise tier priced per seat | Free self-hosted; a hosted Hermes Cloud option also exists (see its official pricing) |
| License | MIT or Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Hosting | self-hosted | self-hosted or cloud |
| Requires GPU | No | No |
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| Providers | Anthropic, OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, Ollama | Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Ollama |
| Skill count | IronHub catalog plus local SKILL.md folders (no published count) | MCP-based — thousands via MCP registry |
| Primary language | Rust | Python |
| Time to first agent | 20 min | 10 min |
| Ease of setup | ●●●○○ | ●●●●○ |
| Power / flexibility | ●●●●○ | ●●●●○ |
| Stability | ●●●●● | ●●●●○ |
| Privacy | ●●●●● | ●●●●○ |
| Cost control | ●●●●○ | ●●●●● |
Pick IronClaw if…
- Secrets are encrypted and injected only at the network proxy, so tools never see them
- WASM-sandboxed tools with per-tool host allowlists
- IronHub-installed skills get 'installed' trust: the model can't self-activate them
- You care about teams, compliance, security-first, secrets-isolation, regulated-industries (IronClaw covers these; Hermes does not).
Wins on: privacy, stability
Pick Hermes if…
- Cleanest MCP tool integration of any platform
- Persistent memory system works out of the box
- Fewer configuration headaches than OpenClaw
- You care about mcp-integration, long-term-memory, beginners, scheduled-tasks, email-triage (Hermes covers these; IronClaw does not).
Wins on: ease, cost
Where each stumbles
IronClaw weakness: Several CLI commands are still marked "not implemented yet" (channels list, hooks list, logs)
Hermes weakness: Smaller skill library than OpenClaw
Which should you pick?
Short answer: if you're still deciding, run both for a week on a single real workflow you care about. The one you reach for on Friday is the right one. Switching costs depend on how much you have built inside each one: instruction files, skills and connectors do not move between products automatically.
Need harder numbers? See the benchmarks hub for side-by-side scores on SWE-bench, GAIA, and community tests.
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